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ON THE 



CHARACTEE AND INFLUENCE 



WASHINGTON 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



^I't^kzio^'iz ^^a'n,€t/ne*i€€t.t6^. o-^^ c^^ttjf^aw^ 



ON SABBATH, FEBRU.ARY 02d, 1863, 



By Rev. J. C. LORD, D. D., Chaplain. 




B TJ F F^A. L O : 

A. M. CLAPP & GO'S .^TEAM PRINTING HOUSE, 
1863. 




A. SERMOISr: 



ON THE 



CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 



WASHIISrG^TOI^ 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



(y'tttte-'n, ^^o'Titi'ne^i'Vaid^ o€' .^jUttd^et'la^ 



ON SABBATH, FEBRUARY 22d, 1863, 

By Rev. J, C^LORD, D. D., Chaplain. 



B XJ F F-iA. L O = 

A. M. CLAPP (fc GO'S MORNING EXPRESS STEAM PRINTING HOUSE, 
1863. 






aiiofr^Sip0tttUttfje. 



Buffalo, February 24, 1863. 

Dear Sir : — The uudcrsigned were, at the close of the parade of the 
Union Continentals, on the 22d inst., duly appointed a Committee to solicit 
from you a copy of your Sermon delivered on that occasion in commemora- 
tion of the Life and Character of the Father of his Country, with a view 
to its publication. 

In conibrmity therewith, we most respectfully solicit from you, at your 
earliest convenience, a copy prepared for the press. 

Trusting that you may be pleased to comply with this request, 

We remain yours, with due respect, &c., 

A. M. CLAPP, 



WILLIAM FISKE, 
GEO. V. BEOT^^N■. 



Eev. Jno. C. Lord, D. D., 

Chaplain Union Continentals. 



Messrs. Clapp and others, Committee of Union Continentals : 

The Sermon delivered by me on the 22d February, upon the character 
and influence of Washington, is, of course, at the disposal of the " Union 
Continentals," at whose request it was prepared. 

Respectfully, 

JNO. C. LORD. 



CHAEACTEE AHD INFLUENOE 



WASHINGTON. 



Your Fathers, where are they ? And the Prophets, do they 
live forever ? Zacu. I, 5. 

Well may we take up this Hebrew lamentation upon this 
anniversary of the birth of Washington, recurring as it does 
on a day of darkness and sorrow, of tumult and war. Falling 
at this time upon the holy Sabbath, it becomes us moreover to 
improve the birthday of the Father of his Country, by a care- 
ful consideration of his example, by a review of his teachings, 
and an exhibition of the purpose fur which God raised him up, 
qualified him, and sent him forth to guide our armies, to 
secure our independence, and to consolidate into one nationality 
the infant States spread over a continent. 

But before proceeding to a review of the character and in- 
fluence of Washington, I propose to consider the first settle- 
ment of this continent, and the providential designs which mark 
the history of its colonization, and progress to the time of the 
Revolution. 

The colonization of North America was of two kinds, and 
from two distinct nationalities, diverse in race, laws, language, 
religion and government ; the one of the Anglo-Germanic, the 
other of the Gothic-Spanish stock. But beyond the diversity 
of race, and perhaps more controlling in its providential re- 
sults, was a diversity of method and purpose in the two colon- 
izations. The Spanish colonists came as soldiers, under the 



CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. 



direction and with the aid of the government, the English 
colonists came as fugitives, under the ban of authority; the 
former with blast of trumpet and banners displayed, with the 
blessing of the national Church, and the commission of their 
king, embarked for the New World, the latter secretly left 
their native land, hiding in small merchant ships, to escape 
from a persecuting Church, and from the penalties imposed on 
non-conformists by arbitrary monarchs. The one came for 
gold and dominion, the other for freedom ; the one found a 
tropical climate and a semi-civilized population, the other a 
comparatively ungenial soil, and an unbroken wilderness, trav- 
ersed only by roaming bands of savages ; the one had quick 
returns of gold and the spoils of conquest, the other for a gen- 
eration battled with poverty, and with the cruel Indian tribes, 
uncertain of the issue, despondent often of their ability to 
maintain their ground. The one in every conquered province 
established the ecclesiastical and civil despotism of Spain, the 
other a free Church and a free State, with but a limited depend- 
ence upon the mother country. Striking as is the contrast 
between the Spanish and English colonization, the results, are 
still more remarkable. A number of feeble and warring 
States, without stability at home or respect abroad, are the 
result of the one enterprise, commenced in such pomp and 
power; a mighty nation, numbering thirty millions of souls, 
who, until the recent outbreak of civil war, was considered the 
most fortunate if not the first nation of the earth, was the 
divinely appointed end of the apparently feeble colonization of 
the rude and stormy North ; the one was like the gourd of 
Jonah, which grew and perished in a day, the other was like 
the handful of corn in the earth seen in vision by the prophet 
on the tops of the mountains, the fruit whereof " shall shake 
like Lebanon." 

The colonization of the North from Maine to South Caro- 
lina, though in some respects diverse, was yet sufficiently 
identical to accomplish the will of God in the settlement of 
this country. New England was settled by the persecuted 
Puritans of old England, Avho, if they had not learned entire 
toleration by their own afflictions in the Old World, were soon 



CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. 



compelled to learn it in the New by the force of circumstances. 
New York was first settled by the descendants of those noble 
Hollanders, who defended their civil and religious liberties 
against the utmost power of the bigoted and ferocious Philip 
II., who arrayed against the few and feeble States of Holland, 
whose inhabitants dwelt on a soil rescued from the sea, the 
resources of the mightiest monarchy of Europe. The man 
who led them on this desperate and apparently hopeless con- 
test, William of Nassau, called also William the Silent, Wil- 
liam the Wise, and William the Just, bears a nearer resem- 
blance to our own Washington than any other likeness to be 
found in the record of history. Pennsylvania was colonized by 
English Friends under Penn, and partly by the early emigration 
from Germany of those, who like the other colonists, desired 
to escape the political and religious despotisms of Europe. 
Among the colonists Sweden had her representatives in New 
Jersey and Delaware. English Catholics who had learned 
toleration by their own sufferings for conscience sake, founded 
Maryland, and have a noble record in the history of the revo- 
lutionary struggle. Scotland and the North of Ireland had 
their representatives more or less everywhere, but mainly in the 
Western part of Pennsylvania and in North Carolina and 
Georgia. France had her representatives in the early coloni- 
zation of South Carolina and elsewhere, scattered through 
the middle colonies, but these also were fugitives from the 
terrible despotism of Louis XIV., and sought like the others, 
religious and civil liberty. Virginia was peculiarly English in 
her colonization, and peculiarly haughty in her claims from 
her earliest history. This might seem strange from the fact 
that so large a portion of the early colonists were fugitives 
from justice, or persons picked up by the English police in sea- 
board cities like Bristol, and packed off to Virginia to be sold 
for their passage. It is a little remarkable that the only penal 
colonies, Virginia and South Carolina, the only States to whom 
it was permitted to send the offscourings of jails and poor- 
houses, should, of all others, be remarkable for pride of descent, 
and set up for a kind of nobility, when in truth they are the 
only States, who have no reason to be proud of their ancestry. 



j^ CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. 

Not that we count this of great moment, for God hath made of 
one blood all men. Not that we would reproach any one with 
his descent, however unfortunate, or say with the poet, of the 
population of the penal colonies, 

" Whose blood, 

Hus crept through scoundrels ever since the flood." 

But such haughty claims from men so descended, provoke their 
exposure and warrant a notice as a curious mental and moral 
phenomenon. 

We argue from the general features of Northern American 
Colonization, that it was the design of God to establish a 
homogeneous character to the population of the United States. 
For while various nations of different creeds were represented 
in the settlement of this country, yet the causes producing 
emigration were almost identically the same. From France, 
and Germany and Holland, as well as from England, Ireland 
and Scotland, came the Pilgrims of freedom, lovers of liberty, 
men escaping from the despotisms of the Old World. The 
desire to establish a free Church and a free State was the 
moving cause of the exodus from Europe, and exhibited itself 
with almost entire uniformity in every colonial government. 
The predominence of British colonization gave a substantially 
uniform language to the whole country from Maine to South 
Carolina, and never in the history of mankind were the foun- 
dations so manifestly laid for a homogeneous population. 

It is equally clear from the same facts, that it was the design 
of Providence to plant a model Republic in the New World, 
in which the old forms of Monarchial government should be 
rejected ; the old and uniform union of the Church with the 
State forever dissolved; in which every man might worship God 
after the dictates of his own conscience, and all hereditary 
claims to govern by descent and proscription be absolutely 
annulled by the fundamental laws. To this everything tended 
in the character of the colonization, and it was also manifest in 
the framing of the constitution of every State, as well as in 
the Constitution of the United States. 

To the end proposed in the divine wisdom, it was an abso- 
lute necessity that a peculiarly religious, moral and intellec- 



CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. 



tual people should colonize Northern America, and with 
trifling exceptions, such a population was to be found at the 
Revolution in all the colonies. The devout Huguenot from 
France, the positive and godly Presbyterian from Scotland and 
the North of Ireland, the English Puritan, whose first care was 
to erect a church, and his second to build a school house, 
whose hymns of praise rang through the arches of the grand 
old woods before an axe was lifted against them, the sturdy 
Hollander, who fought for civil and religious liberty against 
the greatest odds in which a gallant people ever struggled in 
war, were found from Massachusetts to Georgia. 

It is equally manifest that it was the design of the Divine 
Providence that this population so homogeneous, speaking one 
language, and adopting the same principles of government, 
should be one people, forming a single nationality. This was 
essentia] to their independence ; nothing but the union of the 
colonies could have saved them from immediate subjection by the 
power of the mother country. It was early adopted as a fundamen- 
tal maxim of the colonists, "United we stand, divided we fall." 
The idea of unity in respect to the whole country, is manifest 
in the designation of the first Congress as the Continental 
Congress ; the army of the Revolution was called the Conti- . 
nental Army, and the memory and the significance of this fact 
are perpetuated in the adoption of the name of " Union Conti- 
nentals" by the unique and distinguished military corps who 
are assembled here to-day. A united continent was the grand 
idea and the great purpose of the Revolution, and as essential 
to the perpetuity of the nation and its free institutions as it 
was to its original independence. The name we bear of 
" Union Continentals" is happily significant of the duties we 
owe to our country and our government at such a time as this, 
as it was happily devised to perpetuate the memory of our 
Revolutionary Fathers, in the terms which they themselves 
selected to represent their grand idea of a Continental unitv. 

Besides the geographical configuration of the country from 
the Gulf of Mexico to the great lakes or inland seas of the 
North, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, marks it as provi- 
dentially designed for the occupation of a united people, a 



10 CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. 

single empire. Tliere are no natural boundaries such as ordi- 
narily separate nations. The majestic Mississippi binds the 
country together as with a silver chain, from the regions of 
perpetual frost, where the fir and the cedar begin to mark the 
boundaries of vegetable life, to the tropical soil where the fig 
tree puts forth its blossoms, and the orange ripens its golden 
fruit under an ever fervid sun. The mountain ranges, and the 
river courses, all indicate a necessity of national unity, and all 
attempts to put asunder what God hath joined, must ultimately 
fail. Well may we say as a people, with the poet, 

" No pent up Utica contracts our powers, 
But the whole boundless continent is om"s." 

In furtherance of these providential plans and purposes, it 
pleased God to give to America George Washington, whose 
birthday we commemorate on this holy Sabbath as one of 
those epochs in history which can never die out of the memory 
of men. The birth of Washington was one of those gifts of 
the Almighty, not alone to this continent, but to mankind at 
large, which in each return of this day must constitute through- 
out all generations a special occasion of gratitude, thanksgiving 
and praise. 

What an extraordinary preparation was that of the Father 
of his Country for the work he was divinely appointed to do. 
Called into the military service of the colonies while yet a 
minor, he endured fatigues, encountered dangers, and overcome 
obstacles, which marked him as a man of the old heroic type, 
such as God raises up for the deliverance of nations. He was 
early familiarized with hardship and peril, and learned in the 
old French war, which was the school of many of our Revolu- 
tionary officers, the military tactics of Europe, and all the 
subtleties of Indian warfare. He attained, by hard service, the 
rank of Colonel in the army of Virginia, at a period when 
most men are yet boys. Had his advice been followed, he 
M'ould have saved Braddock from the disastrous defeat in 
which this unfortunate man lost his military reputation and 
his life, and it was Washington who brought off a remnant of 
the defeated and terror-smitten army, and saved it from utter 
destruction. It was said bv one who knew him well in that 



CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. 



11 



early day, "I can not doubt that George Washington has 
been raised up to fulfill some great purpose in the Divine 
Providence." Of the historic connection of Gen. Washington 
with the war of the Revolution, it would be superfluous to 
speak. In every household, by every hearth, his name is a 
familiar sound, his life and deeds familiar recollections, and 
every child in the United States has learned from his earliest 
teachings why he is styled the Father of his Country, and why 
he is described as first in war, first in peace, and first in the 
hearts of his countrymen. I propose only to exhibit some of 
the characteristics of this truly great man, to point the moral 
of the enquiry of the text, " Our Fathers, where are they 1 
And the Prophets, do they live forever?" 

Perfection does not belong to any of the conditions of the 
human family; the blessed Savior, who alone was without sin, 
furnished in this, one proof of his divinity ; but perhaps in no 
one man has a greater uniformity and perfectness of character 
ever been found in the recoi'ds of our race than in Washington. 
His judgment was always sound, his temper was almost always 
under the command of his reason ; none of the weaknesses or 
blemishes so commonly found in the heroes and statesmen of 
the world, seem to have marred his character or beclouded his 
intellect. He was of a majestic person, inspiring awe in all 
who approached him, always courteous, though grave and 
dignified : he was able to keep his own counsel, a rare attain- 
ment, and hence was never betrayed; no man ever really 
doubted the inflexible integrity which was stamped on his 
countenance, and exemplified in every act of his life. His 
constancy was admirable ; in the darkest hour he never 
doubted, and as defeat and disappointment did not discourage 
him, so victory did not elate him or render him presumptuous. 
The capture of Burgotne ruined Gen. Gates ; a thousand such 
victories would never have disturbed the unparalelled equani- 
mity of Washington, or rendered him like Gates, fool-hardy 
or vain glorious. Washington was equal to either or any 
fortune, and in the darkest scenes of our Revolutionary war, 
by his calmness, courage and caution, reanimated the hearts of 
his countrymen. Though, as a General his policy was necessa- 



J 2 CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. 

rily a Fabian one, cautious and defensive, yet the crossing of 
the Delaware and capture of the Hessians, was as daring and 
brilliant an achievement, if on a smaller scale, than any accom- 
plished by Napoleon or Wellington, and had he commanded 
armies such as were led into the field by these greatest of 
modern generals, I believe he would have shown qualities 
equal, if not superior to them, for he had an undoubted genius 
for war, and a penetrating and almost perfect judgment, which 
would have prevented the mistakes sometimes made by these 
masters of military science. Washington would never have 
led a half a million of men into the heart of Russia. But how 
does the character of Washington tower above that of any of 
the conquerors and heroes of ancient or modern times ! What 
rare and grand simplicity and integrity, what unselfish devotion 
to the cause of his country and of freedom! What a lofty 
patriotism, rising above all personal and political interests, 
limited by no colonial prejudices or boundaries, as earnest in 
and for Massachusetts as in and for Virginia ; a patriotism 
before which faction was silent, and local and State rivalries 
shamed out of their petty discords. What a breadth in the 
intellectual powers of a man who could seize, as by intuition, 
upon the necessities of his country and provide for them, and 
predict like a prophet the precise danger to which time has 
shown the United States to be exposed, and which might have 
been escaped had the counsels of his farewell address to his 
countrymen been followed. Alas for us, in such a day as this, 
and in view of the slighted counsels of Washington, we may 
well lift up the lamentation of the text, " Our Fathers, where 
are they? And the Prophets, do they live forever?" 

It is impossible to exaggerate such a character as that of 
W^ashington ; it stands in the history of heroes and conquerors 
like some majestic peak among the Andes, towering sublimely 
among its fellows and thrusting its snowy summit far out of 
sight among the stars. Though little more than half a century 
has passed since his death, his genius and his virtues have made 
his name a household word in every continent and on every 
island of the sea. The poets, historians and philosophers of 
Europe, have found no terms too laudatory to represent their 



CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. 13 

admiration of the hero and statesman of America. The 
innumerable hordes of Asia who know little of the New 
World have heard of Washington, and his name and fame are 
to them the greatest, if not the only facts connected with the 
newly found continent. The Tartar in his tent in the vast 
steppes of Thibet or in the huts of Siberia, knows something of 
Washington, though he may not have heard of Columbus or 
the great Republic of the West. So wonderfully does the 
fragrance of a great name diffuse itself throughout the world, 
so almighty is goodness when allied to greatness, to stamp 
itself upon the memory and embalm itself in the love of 
mankind. 

But one characteristic of Washington should be particularly 
noticed upon this sacred day devoted to the worship of God 
and the cure of the soul. He was a christian, not merely in 
name or by profession, but in fiict and deed. Like William 
the Silent, the hero of Holland, he was a man of prayer. The 
proof of this is found in all the record of his life, and particu- 
larly in the secret devotions of this great man, which were 
especially observed in the dark hours of our early history. The 
duties of his office, the constant demand upon his time and 
attention, did not prevent him from supplicating the mercy of 
God at times of stated private devotion. We would not 
withdraw the vail from the sacred hours of intercourse 
between such a man as Washington and the great Ruler of 
nations, who had raised him up, and qualified him and sent 
him forth for the deliverance of a continent. We may well 
imagine with what earnest supplication this christian hero 
besought God for Christ's sake to appear in behalf of his 
beloved country, staggering and bleeding under the assaults of 
her formidable enemy; with what profound humility he 
entreated the guidance of the divine wisdom and the conso- 
lation of the holy spirit in his difficult and trying position. 
When we consider that at the commencement of our Revolu- 
tion, the doctrines of the Encyclopedists had made their way 
to this continent, and that many of our public men were 
infected by the infidelity which prevailed in Fi'ance, we cannot 
but admire the consistent piety and faith of Washington, from 



14 CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. 

which all the darts of this insinuating and subtle scepticism 
glanced as from an armor of proof We may well offer to-day 
our humble and hearty thanks to God for the christian example 
of Washington, and that among all his heroic qualities, and 
with all his great powers, which made him the foremost man 
of his own and perhaps of any age, be added piety toward 
God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Did time permit, it 
might be shown at length that piety is an essential element to 
that lofty development of character, to that pure and elevated 
patriotism which gives to such men as Washington and Wil- 
liam of Orange, that pre-eminence of fame which marks them 
in the congregation of the world's giants, a head and shoulders 
above their fellows. That is still true which the Apostle Paul 
declared concerning the heroes and martyrs of the ancient 
days, " who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought right- 
eousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 
quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, 
out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, 
turned to flight the armies of the aliens." 

The crowning work of Washington was not the establish- 
ment of the independence of his country ; great as was this 
result, it was second to the realization of the unity of the 
nation under the sanctions of a constitution. We have 
already seen how the identity of the people was providentially 
secured by the nature of their colonization and the similarity 
of their colonial forms of government. The first actual realiza- 
tion of the idea of unity was found in the Continental Con- 
gress, acting for the whole country and representing all its 
sections. But it was soon found that such a confederacy of 
independent States was but a mere rope of sand, when the 
immediate exigency of the war had passed away and local 
jealousy, and State and individual parsimony, were left to 
operate in a time of peace. To George Washington more 
than any other man we owe a national constitution, binding 
not upon States as aggregated, but upon the people of the 
United States, a constitution which expressly took away the 
sovereignty of the States for any national purpose, and made 
the government of the United States paramount in its authority 



CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. 



15 



over both States and people. The jurisdiction of the general 
government was indeed limited to matters of national concern- 
ment, but it was made as absolute within its sphere as the 
government of each State had been before the constitution was 
adopted. The main design of the constitution was, in point of 
fact, to take away from each State its sovereignty so far as it 
gave them the right to interfere with the legislation of the 
general government, or left them the privilege of adjudicating 
upon its acts or seceding from its jurisdiction. It took away 
absolutely, the power of review and control by any State 
government, and confined this ultimate power to review, 
control or annul the acts of the general government, to the 
Supreme Court of the United States. It was designed to meet 
the precise case which has occurred in the great rebellion, and 
to make the attempt of secession the crime of treason. The 
proof of this is found in the causes which led to the framing 
and adoption of the constitution, and in all the arguments pro 
and con in the venerable and patriotic convention which 
adopted it, and in all the addresses on either side to the people 
of the different States in regard to its ratification. Whatever 
else may be doubtful in the history of this great event this 
part is patent and unquestionable. 

To this national unity so essential, and which was apparently 
secured by so many providential arrangements, and which 
seemed to be perfected in the adoption of the constitution 
there was one obstacle, the existence of domestic servitude, 
forced originally upon the unwilling colonists by the mother 
country, whose greed of gain could not at that time be over- 
come by any motives of humanity, or by any protest of her 
subjects in North America. The incongruity of slavery with 
a republican form of government, and the antagonistic tenden- 
cies of two utterly diverse systems of labor and forms of 
social life, did not escape the notice of the fathers of the 
republic and the framers of its constitution. The great if not 
the only mistake they made was in not limiting its existence 
by the terms of the constitution, instead of leaving it to the 
operation of national causes, which it was believed at that 
time would surely if not speedily effect its overthrow. 



IQ CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. 

It is extremely difficult to speak on the subject of American 
slavery on broad historic grounds, or to deal with it as a 
theological or moral question, or exhibit its providential 
aspects, from the extreme sensitiveness of many in regard to 
the question, and for the reason that the ultra men on the one 
side cannot see any recognition of slavery in the constitution, 
or seeing it would reject that noble instrument altogether, 
while another class equally fanatical, can see nothing else in the 
charter of our unity but a recognition of slavery, and no 
grander design or greater interest in it than to conserve and 
perpetuate domestic despotism to the end of time. These 
extremists in their mutual hatred and mutual abuse do not 
perceive how much alike they are, and that <' Negro-mania" 
is the disease under which they both labor and by which they 
are on both sides blinded to the great interests of freedom and 
humanity which it is the main design of the constitution to 
secure, nor how they are being led, imperceptibly perhaps, 
into an antagonistic j)osition to the war which is now being 
waged for the unity of the nation and the life of the republic. 
It is Satan reproving sin when these extreme men reproach each 
other for a want of loyalty to the constitution, neither of them 
perceive the great issue for the nation and the world of the 
present contest ; they both belittle the constitution, and would 
narrow the grand charter of liberty to the little anti-slavery or 
•pro-slavery plank, which is all they see or seek to save out of 
the noble vessel tossing now upon the stormy sea of civil war. 
If these men could understand how utterly powerless they are 
either to save or destroy the system of domestic despotism, if 
they could be made to apprehend that the first gun fired against 
Fort Sumter was the signal of a proclamation of freedom to the 
slave from the Almighty Ruler of nations, and that when the 
South announced secession. Providence proclaimed abolition as 
an inevitable sequence, they would cease to wrangle over a ques- 
tion which long since passed out of their hands, and concerning 
which they cannot make one hair white or black. In my judg- 
ment the war has already made the disappearance of slavery on 
this continent only a question of time, and those who have any 
tears to shed over its decease may prepare to shed them now. 



CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. J7 

What the course of Gen. Washington would be were he 
now in life and at the call of his country, is manifest from all 
his acts and recorded opinions. He would announce to the 
country the preservation of its unity as an absolute necessity. 
He would regard all other considerations as of little compara- 
tive importance. He would not suffer any interest of African 
slavery to stand a moment in the way of any blow that could 
be aimed at the detestable treason which seeks to overthrow 
all that was gained in the Revolution, and reduce the nation to 
a state of anarchy. Virginia would be nothing more to him 
than any other section of the country, and he would treat its 
insurrectionary inhabitants as he treated the tories in the 
Revolutionary war. He would never suffer his country- 
men to be discouraged by any reverses ; with the calm re- 
ligious confidence which carried him and the country through 
the Revolutionary war he would animate his countrymen to 
renewed efforts, and persuade them to abandon all local issues, 
all past political prejudices, all mere party interests, and unite 
heart and soul in the salvation of the Republic. He would 
hold no terms with traitors, and would drive the whole popu- 
lation of the South white and black into the Gulf of Mexico 
rather than yield to their secession, for the reason that the 
concession of this anarchial and treasonable claim would make 
the whole continent a hunting field for the dogs of war through- 
out all time, involve all future generations in a ruin whose 
only remedy would be a military despotism, and darken 
forever the hopes of freedom throughout the world. Could 
the Father of his Country speak from his grave to-day he 
would again warn his countrymen against suffering any separa- 
tion. He would admonish them that their liberties were 
bound up in their nationality, and that to allow the Republic 
to fall into fragments would be to commit national suicide and 
render the American name a perpetual scoff in all the future 
ages. He would remind his countrymen of that eternal 
Providence that watched over the infancy of the nation and 
delivered the feeble colonies from the most formidable power 
in Europe, and in this second baptism of blood he would 
exhort us to send the last man and expend the last dollar in 



Jg CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. 

defence of our national life, lifting up to the Heavens all the 
time the inspired prayer, "Through thee. Oh God, will we push 
down our enemies, through thee will we tread them under who 
rise up against us. Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most 
Mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty. Blessed be the Lord 
my strength, who teacheth my hand to war and my fingers to 
fight." 

While in view of the life and character of Washington and 
his compeers of the Eevolutionary war, we may well adopt 
the words of the text, " Our Fathers, where are they ? And 
the Prophets, do they live forever?" — we may yet render 
our humble and hearty thanks to Almighty God that the 
memory of such a man has been bequeathed to us, that such 
an example is left to animate us, to revive our courage, and lead 
us with faith and confidence in such a time as this to the throne 
of the Divine grace, in behalf of the nationality which he was 
the main instrument in establishing, and of the liberties, to 
secure which he freely hazarded his life and his fortunes. 

It is no slight indication of the purpose of God to j)reserve 
this nation, whatever dangers may threaten it, that he should 
have given the old thirteen colonies such a leader in their war 
for independence, and that he should have honored the constitu- 
tion, which is the symbol and the guarantee of our unity, with 
such an author, and that Washington should have been placed 
at the helm of the infant government during the tremendous 
crisis of the first French Revolution, which not only shook 
every throne in Europe, but threatened for a time the first 
principles of religion and law. Washington himself was 
reviled and threatened for refusing to intermeddle in the afTairs 
of Europe, and for his firm opposition to the inundation of the 
country with French Jacobinism and French Atheismr. But this 
great man was as regardless of the clamors of f;iction as he 
had before been of the blandishments of royalty and the temp- 
tation of ambition ; with a firm grasp upon the reins of 
government he guided the nation under the new constitution 
for the first eight years of its existence, and then like Cincin- 
NATus returned to the plough. The farewell address of Wash- 
ington to his countrymen reads to-day like a prophecy, and 



CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. JQ 



clearly indicates that he foresaw the dangers which have now 
come upon us, though he did not foresee the gigantic propor- 
tions which the system of American slavery was to attain 
under the stimulus of the invention of the cotton gin, or 
that it was destined to put forth as the corner stone of its 
rebellion against the government, the arrogant and unchristian 
claim of constituting the highest form of christian civilization. 
Could the Fathers of our government have foreseen this ; had 
Washington and Jefferson, and their compeers North and 
South, had the least anticipation of such a result, they would 
have placed barriers to slavery in the constitution itself, and 
provided lor a scheme of gradual emancipation such as has 
been suggested by President Lincoln. The man who doubts 
this may easily satisfy himself of its truth by a careful exami- 
nation of the recorded opinions and testimentary acts of 
Washington and Jefferson, the latter of whom openly and 
uniformly expressed opinions on this subject which many of 
his professed followers at this day would pronounce to be the 
political heresy of abolitionism. 

What we need at the present time is an abandonment of all 
inferior issues, all past prejudices, all mere party questions, 
for the salvation of our common country. To put down the 
rebellion at any cost, to regard the unity of the nation as an 
absolute necessity, to hold as an enemy to his country and his 
race all who openly or secretly fixvor the dismemberment of 
the Republic, is what the present crisis demands. It may be 
thought a strange declaration to make, yet 1 will venture upon 
the assertion that the conquest of the North and its uncondi- 
tional subjugation to the South, deplorable and shameful to us 
as this might be, would not be an evil so great as the disrup- 
tion of our nationality. Disastrous as the result might be of 
subjugation to Southern rule and the dictatorship of Davis, 
yet a remedy might be found in the fact of a continued union 
of territory, and the probability that time and a changed 
public sentiment might restore us to a tolerable condition. 
But if the chrystal vase of national unity be shivered it can 
never be restored ; no power could prevent the progress of 
disintegration, no treaties would bind the warring and con- 
3 



20 CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. 

temptible sovereignties, whose eternal warfare would make a 
chaos of the continent, and final and irretrievable ruin mark 
the extinction of all hopes of political freedom, and consign us 
first to anarchy, and in the end to a military despotism the 
worst and bloodiest the world ever saw. 

Above all we should avoid a feeling of despondency and 
discouragement. We are an impatient people, ever looking 
for immediate results, ever, if 1 may be allowed the expression, 
hurrying up Providence, ever casting blame upon our servants 
and agents because they do not and cannot perform impossi- 
bilities. The providence of God in the august march of events 
along the years and centuries of time moves slowly yet surely 
to its end. " Festi7ia lente^'' make haste slowly, was a maxim 
of the wise men of antiquity. We have accomplished more 
and suffered less than we either realize or acknowledge ; neither 
is the end of this wicked rebellion so far oflf as we imagine. 
For myself, I have never wavered in my confidence in the 
result, and have never for a moment doubted that all the pain 
and loss, the travail and bloodshed of the present civil strife 
would result in the end in the glory of God, and in establish- 
ing upon immutable foundations, the unity of the nation and 
the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness, of all who shall ever dwell under the shadow of the great 
Republic in all the coming ages of time. Let us remember 
that God lives and reigns, that He sitteth in the congregation 
of the mighty and judgeth among the Gods; that He is the 
unchangeable friend of truth and righteousness, of order, law 
and liberty, and that the mission of his son into our world was 
to break every yoke of despotism and let every captive go free, 
and will he suffer the last, the grandest, the most promising of 
all experiments and examples of civil and religious freedom, to 
expire in the darkness and be smothered in the stench of a pro- 
slavery revolt, which would turn back the progress of ages, 
and bury the reforms of a thousand years under a pyramid of 
shackles fashioned for human limbs? 

Fellow citizens and fellow soldiers, who assemble in a body 
here to-day to do honor to the memory of the Father of his 
Country, your chosen designation of " Union Continentals" is 



CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. 21 

not only a memorial of the ancient times which tried men's 
souls, but is a public affirmation of your recognition of the 
fundamental idea of American unity. Whatever political 
differences may divide you as they divide other associations, 
whatever diversities of views in regard to men or measures 
may exist, in one thing we agree, that the defence of our 
national unity, at whatever sacrifice of life or treasure, is the 
first duty of every American citizen. You represent and 
embody in your organization the immortal declaration of Gen. 
Jackson, the motto of his monument defaced by traitors in 
Tennessee, "the Union, it must and shall be preserved." 
More than this, your chosen title is significant of another 
American doctrine next in importance to that of the national 
unity, to wit: the non-interference of the European powers 
with the affairs of this continent, the shutting out of all foreign 
intermeddling, not only as it regards ourselves, but m respect 
to the neighboring Republics. 

I do not think the meaning of the raid by the French 
Emperor upon Mexico is fully comprehended by the people of 
the United States. It really means the dismemberment of our 
Republic ; it is a flank attack upon the Union ; it is not so much 
intended for the benefit of the insurgents as to take advantage 
of our troubles to plant, if possible, a great French American 
Empire, to include at least Texas and Louisiana, and aa 
much more as may be possible. Every battle lost in Mexico 
by Louis Napolkon, every decimation of the French army by 
the pestilence, is a victory for us, and shows that though we 
are not at this moment in circumstances to enforce the Monroe 
doctrine of non-intervention, yet the Almighty is enforcing it 
for us, and teaching the ambitious and grasping ruler of France 
that the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the 
strong, and furnishing another proof of His purpose to preserve 
this Republic from all foes without, no less than from all foes 
within. " Union Continentals ! " Significant name ! The idea 
involved in it lies at the foundation of our liberties, it is the 
word of power which shall scatter this rebellion as chaff before 
the tempest. The union of the continent is a platform upon 
which all true patriots may unite whatever diversity of opinion 



22 CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON. 



may exist in regard to other things. " One People, one 
Republic, one Constitution," One front to foreign nations, 
one system of laws, securing to all men their inalienable rights, 
one law for all refugees from the tyrannies of the Old World, 
and that the law of hospitality and fraternity, and last though 
not least, one God and Saviour, to be worshipped freely by all 
men of all denominations, after the dictates of their own 
conscience, with none to molest them or make them afraid. 

Let us never despair of the Republic, let us never doubt the 
firmness of the foundations which Washington established, let 
us never yield to despondency, as though God would destroy 
the work of his own hands and give up to ruin the Republic, 
to plant which He sifted Europe for centuries of its most 
precious seed for the handful of corn in the tops of the moun- 
tains, whose fruit is destined to fill the earth. Let us watch 
and pray, hope on and hope ever, until the day of our deliver- 
ance come, as come it will, when the nation redeemed, regen- 
erated and disenthralled, shall take up the ancient anthem of 
praise, from the hills to the valleys and from the mountains to 
the sea. 

" Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount 
Zion ; on the sides of the North, the city of the Great King, 
God is known in his palaces for a refuge, for lo, the kings were 
assembled, they passed by together, they saw it and so they 
marvelled, they were troubled and hasted away, fear took hold 
upon them, and pain as of a woman in travail. Let Mount 
Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad because of thy 
judgments. Walk about Zion, and go round about her, tell the 
towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her 
palaces, God will establish her forever, for this God is our God 
forever and ever. Amen." 



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